Service Catalog Engagements

Evergreen Systems helps clients develop Service Catalogs through an eight-step approach which develops attributes that include service structure, service description, operational level agreements, service level agreements and all related costs. Here's how it's done.

1. Define Service Families - This step establishes the 'highest' (broadest) level within the Service Catalog structure and provides a comprehensive structure supporting all services with minimal anticipated revisions.
2. Define Services Within Families - The second step is to define the service offerings within the existing Service Family structure.
3. Map Services to Existing Customers - Step three focuses on mapping established services to the existing customer population, providing IT with an understanding of service demand and an opportunity to validate all of the services actually being used.
4. Map Expectations and Dependencies to Services - This step ensures that dependant services, processes or vendor lead times are accounted for, and provides the foundation for the development of OLAs and SLAs.
5. Establish Operational Level Agreements - Operational Level Agreements are then established, when applicable, through the development of a clear picture of a given service and its interdependencies. Once OLAs are established, internal metrics for a given service can then be captured and used to establish Service Level Agreements.
6. Establish Service Level Agreements - This step establishes service level agreements for applicable services, based on gaining agreements between IT and its customers on the terms and availability of services.
7. Establish Cost of Services - This step establishes a cost for services, when applicable, and establishes appropriate pricing for available services, associated the level of service delivered. It involves analysis of the various services, SLA options and calculations of cost in relation to services delivered.
8. Establish Steady State - The last step of the process defines the audience, purpose and process of the Service Catalog, creates a training plan for all users and includes the creation and delivery of a communications plan, a quarterly process for validating existing services and a yearly process to validate Service Catalog structure and attributes.

Evergreen's Service Catalog engagements covers each of these steps and leverages all relevant components of industry standard best practices processes such as the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL)® and the Control Objectives for Information and Related Technologies (CobiT).

Evergreen helps clients to develop a service catalog that not only ensures efficiency and compliance, but also leaves behind comprehensive tools and templates. This approach delivers a project with repeatable processes, capable of enhancement and expansion, over time.

As part of each service catalog project, Evergreen Systems ensures acceptance and adoption of the services through a variety of means:

• Workshops that gather IT and end user data.
• Cross training and 'train the trainer' workshops that enables the core team to become subject matter experts and establish credibility with peers and end user lines of business.
• Marketing and communications plans that articulate the uses, scope and value of the project to the business as a whole.

The last component of the Service Catalog brings the project to a 'steady state' and includes the processes below, in order to ensure ongoing success of the project and build continuous improvement:

• Validation of all data with service owners.
• Implementation of automation tools.
• Definition of the Service Catalog audience.
• Definition of the purpose and process of the SC.
• Creation of ongoing training plans for all users including steady state process for updating and revising the Service Catalog.
• Creation and delivery of an ongoing marketing and communications plan.
• Creation of a quarterly process to validate existing services on an ongoing basis.
• Creation of a yearly process to validate Service Catalog structure and attributes.

An Evergreen Service Catalog engagement enables an organization take the myriad of hardware, software, services, desktop, storage, hosting, network, remote access, email and shared services, and organize them according to services valued by the business. It also organizes these components into a framework that allows their costs and market value to be assessed, important for both cross charging as well as competitive price comparison for outsource analysis. Download Evergreen's Service Catalog whitepaper to see more.

See also Evergreen's offering summary on our Service Catalog Workshop.